Little Joe (rocket)
Little Joe was an unmanned United States solid-fueled booster rocket used for eight launches from 1959–1960 from Wallops Island, Virginia to test the launch escape system and heat shield for Project Mercury capsules, as well as the name given to the test program using the booster. The first rocket designed solely for manned spacecraft qualifications, Little Joe was also one of the pioneer operational launch vehicles using the rocket cluster principle.
A successor, Little Joe II, was used for flight testing of the Apollo launch escape system from 1963–1966.
Read more about Little Joe (rocket): Background, Launch Vehicle Development, Flights, Mission Numbering, Specifications
Famous quotes containing the word joe:
“We saw a pair of moose-horns on the shore, and I asked Joe if a moose had shed them; but he said there was a head attached to them, and I knew that they did not shed their heads more than once in their lives.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)